UH Receives $675,000 Grant to Address Smoking Cessation

According to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tobacco use continues to be the
leading preventable cause of death in the U.S. resulting in more than 440,000
premature deaths a year. An additional 25 million smokers will most likely die
of a smoking related illness.

To address this
problem and further research in the area, the National Institute on Drug Abuse
(NIDA) awarded a $675,000 grant to Michael J. Zvolensky, the Hugh Roy and
Lillie Cranz Distinguished University Professor in the department of clinical
psychology at the University of Houston (UH) and Peter J. Norton, associate
professor of psychology at UH. Zvolensky and Norton will serve as co-principal
investigators “Augmenting Smoking Cessation with Transdiagnostic Cognitive
Behavior Therapy (CBT) for Smokers with Anxiety,” a study that will examine
whether a “transdiagnostic” cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), a model that
allows therapists to apply one set of principles across anxiety disorders, can
improve smoking cessation for anxious smokers.

“Despite interventions
like nicotine replacement therapy and national advertising campaigns on the
consequences of smoking, people in the smoking cessation and addiction field
noticed the rates of tobacco use had stabilized, but the rates of tobacco
addiction weren’t any different than they were 20 years ago. We had treated all
the easy people. Those left were the complicated cases with something else
going on,” said Zvolensky.

“What we know from
our research is that people who smoke often have anxiety and other mental
disorders and vice versa. Existing treatment plans for smoking cessation have
not addressed anxiety and stress disorders in any formal and meaningful way.”

Norton notes one of
the biggest problems in helping anxious people quit smoking is that many people
smoke cigarettes to calm their anxiety or reduce stress. By combining an
evidence-based anxiety disorder treatment and smoking cessation program, Norton
and Zvolensky expect to be able to help people quit, and stay quit, by reducing
their anxiety, one of the biggest barriers to quitting smoking.

Participants are
needed for the study. The treatment-based research follows 60 adults, ages
18-65, with anxiety disorders who are smokers of at least 10 cigarettes a day.
Participants must have smoked for a year or more and willing to make an attempt
to quit within 30 days of the start of the study. The study involves a
telephone pre-screen and a baseline appointment. During the baseline
appointment, participants will complete an interview, and if eligible, receive
free nicotine replacement therapy. They will meet with therapists for 11-weeks
to decrease anxiety and receive help through the cessation experience.

“The significance
of this research is developing an effective smoking cessation treatment that
targets people with anxiety disorders, so they will be smoke-free,” said
Zvolensky. “The second goal is reducing the amount of use, also known as harm
reduction. You don’t have to view things as complete abstinence to be successful.
That’s important in the case of tobacco, in particular, because even simple
reductions from 20 to 10 or from 10 to five cigarettes a day could have a
linear decrease in exposure to a lot of other negative outcomes.”

A prominent
researcher in health behaviors, Zvolensky has published more than 300
peer-reviewed articles and co-edited two books, “Distress Tolerance: Theory,
Research and Clinical Applications” and “Anxiety in Health Behaviors and
Physical Illness.” He has been cited extensively for his research on the
relationship between anxiety and addiction.

Zvolensky launched
the Anxiety and Health Research Laboratory/Substance Use Treatment Clinic
(AHRL-SUTC) at UH to provide free, empirically based evaluation and treatment
services to adults struggling with anxiety disorders and substance use. To get
more information about participating in a research study, please call AHRL-SUTC
at (713) 743-8056 or visit http://www.uh.edu/class/psychology/clinical-psych/research/ahrl-sutc/index.php

An expert on
anxiety disorders, Norton serves as director of the UH Anxiety Disorder Clinic.
He is the author of the book, “Group Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy of Anxiety. A
Transdiagnostic Treatment Manual,” and co-author of “The Anti-Anxiety Workbook:
Proven Strategies to Overcome Worry, Phobias, Panic and Obsessions.” He has
authored more than 90 research papers on such topics as anxiety disorders, CBT
and chronic pain and serves on the editorial boards of two scientific journals.

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